Olympics Offer No Break for Cameron as Coalition Rift Widens

The proposed changes to overhaul the House of Lords could have delivered Prime Minister David Cameron as many as 20 extra seats at the 2015 general election. photographer: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

Aug. 8 (Bloomberg) -- As Britain celebrates the triumph of
its athletes at the London Olympics, Prime Minister David
Cameron is struggling to contain rifts in his two-year-old
ruling coalition.

Relations hit a new low this week as his Liberal Democrat
allies avenged their failed bid to overhaul the House of Lords
by vowing to block electoral boundary changes seen as vital for
the Conservatives to win an outright parliamentary majority.

The new constituency map could have delivered Cameron as
many as 20 extra seats at the 2015 general election. The dispute
has highlighted splits not just within the coalition, but within
the Conservatives -- almost a third of Cameron’s lawmakers
voted against him over House of Lords reform last month.

“This is yet more evidence that Cameron’s project to
detoxify his party is incomplete,” Tim Bale, professor of
politics at Sussex University, said in an interview. “Too many
people in his party never accepted they lost the 2010 general
election. They still seem to be laboring under the illusion that
there’s some way they can get the leadership and policies they
want without a majority in Parliament.”

The International Olympic Committee said yesterday that 88
percent of Britons had watched some of the Olympics as their
country headed for its best medals tally in a century, and the
event proceeded without significant disruption for the capital
city. As the medal haul increased yesterday afternoon, Cameron
hailed “a truly golden summer” for the British Olympic team.

‘Pleasure Dome’

In an interview with LBC radio this morning, Cameron said
the Olympics “will inspire generations” and he paid tribute to
Chris Hoy, who yesterday won a sixth gold medal on the final day
of track cycling to surpass rower Steve Redgrave as the most
successful British Olympian. “The Velodrome has been the
pleasure dome, hasn’t it?” the prime minister said.

Cameron yesterday described the political situation as
“frustrating” after he failed to persuade rank-and-file
Conservatives to support Liberal Democrat plans to introduce
elections to the 700-year-old upper chamber of Parliament.

He insisted he will push ahead with boundary changes and
urged every lawmaker to support the plan. With the Liberal
Democrats and the Labour Party opposing it, Cameron will need to
bring his own party into line and win over the backing of
smaller Scottish and Welsh nationalist parties.

Broken Promises

The review of parliamentary boundaries is designed to
reduce the number of lawmakers in the Commons to 600 from 650 to
save money and create seats with roughly equal numbers of
voters. The Tories would have been just short of a majority with
299 seats if the May 2010 election had been contested on the
proposed new boundaries, according to Anthony Wells, of polling
company YouGov Plc. They won 306 of 650 seats in 2010.

The move still faces opposition from some Conservatives who
may lose their seats or see their majorities shrink.

The demise of the House of Lords Reform Bill is the latest
blow to Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who has seen his poll
ratings plummet since he went into coalition with Cameron. The
Liberal Democrats had the backing of just 8 percent of voters in
an Aug. 4 poll by YouGov, which gave the Conservatives 33
percent and Labour 44 percent.

In 2010, the Liberal Democrats broke a pre-election pledge
not to vote for increases in university tuition fees. Last year,
they lost a referendum to change the voting system. If Clegg
stays as leader, he will face voters in 2015 without having
delivered any of the constitutional changes he promised in 2010.

Defiance

His decision to oppose boundary changes raises the
unprecedented prospect of Liberal Democrat ministers voting
against government policy. Ministers who defy the government
usually face being fired, though Cameron is unlikely to take
such action as it would cause the coalition to collapse.

Clegg said he wanted to show the Conservatives there will
be consequences for breaking the coalition agreement between the
two parties. Cameron today denied the deal had been breached,
saying he believed the link with boundary change was with the
referendum on the voting system, not House of Lords reform.

He insisted the pair still enjoy a “good working
relationship” and said they will use the extra parliamentary
time to step up efforts to lift the economy out of recession.

“We were never going to agree on everything,” Cameron
said. “There will be arguments, there will be disagreements,
but the British public don’t want to see that.”

Cameron faced more bad news today as the Bank of England
lowered its growth forecasts to show the U.K. economy at a
standstill this year.

`Total Commitment'

“It is to our Olympic team that we should look for
inspiration,” Governor Mervyn King told a press conference in
London after the central bank published its quarterly Inflation
Report. “They have shown us the importance of total commitment
when trying to achieve a goal that may lie some years ahead.”

The dispute over the House of Lords may only encourage
rebellious Conservatives to vote down more measures.

That means Clegg isn’t the only leader under threat,
according to Bale. “Conservatives may take the view that
Cameron was the leader for a coalition government,” he said.
“If a coalition government isn’t working, this could encourage
them to look at getting rid of Cameron.”